I'm planning to do my annual evaluation before Christmas because I just want to get it out of the way. I haven't spent the time to do the reflecting that I normally do, so I'll probably have more coherent and precise thoughts by the time I sit down to do that. But for this semester, I would have to label it as a learning semester. I tried extending the flipped-ness of the class beyond what I have done in the past, and stepped into a couple things that, in hindsight, seemed perfectly predictable. So I'm expecting students to give me a slightly lower evaluation than usual. But that's fine. I did take a number of notes that I'm using to help plan and prepare for the next time I teach these classes.
The break is going to be interesting. I've alreadys started building my course webpages for next semester. I've already updated the ART 240 course materials. There's a little bit of rearranging of the content, and adding a few more exercises in certain areas. But other than that, I think the class is in pretty good shape. I've been updating my MATH 182 materials a little bit. There's not too much to do here. I want to make some practice quizzes and practice exams to try to provide better support in those areas. I also want to introduce a preclass problem for the students to work on in addition to the preview activity, and maybe tie that to getting some quizzes dropped or something like that. I've still got to think that through. The MATH 127 course will be updated similarly. In that class, I really need a preclass problem to force them to engage (which was a real struggle for this cohort). I'm also updating one of the mini-projects involving gears to move out of the theoretical and into the pseudo-practical by actually giving them gears to play with. I've learned from the last couple times teaching this class that the students really don't have good intuition with this, and they need more help building that.
And then there's MATH 125. I'm going to have to go through that one a bit more carefully because that's going to be my first run of the course, and I really want it to go well.
There are a few other things going on this break. I'm working on updating the timed arithmetic thing that I used to do. The goal now is to manim-ize it (turn it into videos using manim). This will basically flood the YouTube channel with a bunch of basic arithmetic videos through a combination of practice videos (videos where it's just arithmetic problems) and also explanation videos (to help students rethink how they think about arithmetic). I've started writing some scripts, but it's going to be a while before I can really start trying to build those videos and move forward with that part. I'm hoping to get it started over the break, but I'm not optimistic about that.
Thanksgiving was quiet, but good. We did a hot pot with just the two of us. It was all low key and mostly about relaxing. We also got our Christmas tree up. It has embedded lights, but we haven't yet hung any ornaments. Our Christmas card wreath holder thing is hanging on the wall, and it's starting to fill up with Christmas cards from people who are on top of that thing. Our Christmas cards have mostly been sent, I think. (Joan is actually the one who is signing them and I've been responsible for putting at least some of them into the mailbox.) We ended up ordering a couple photos from the photo shoot, and one of them did end up on the card.
I have been successful at my various building projects. I got Thor's water fountain up and running, and you can view that here. (I hope the link works. It's still processing right now.) I saw him try to drink from it once, and he was caught a little off guard by the running water. I haven't seen him go back to it since, but the water level did drop to the point that I felt I should add more water. So it's either evaporating (which is possible because it's so dry out here), or he's just drinking it when we're not watching because he thinks he's not supposed to drink from it. I'll see if I can solve that mystery over the break.
A second project that I was working on was a shelf for our 3D printer filament on campus. Previously, things were just stacked up into random piles that made it hard to see what colors there were. So I got permission from the Chair to use some of the prop building materials to build a shelf to improve the organization. It looks decent as long as you don't look too closely. But if you looked closely, you would see some wildly uneven and crooked cuts. That's at least partly because I ended up not using the circular saw. When I looked at the saw, I wasn't certain that the blade was installed properly (I think it was backwards), and I didn't have the experience to be comfortable changing it, and so I just took the pieces home and used a hand saw. I had let him know in advance that it wouldn't be pretty, but since it sits behind closed doors, it was fine. And it got done much faster than it would have if we had to wait for facilities to do it (and much cheaper than if we were to go out and try to buy something).
I also am back to a cardboard building mood. I built a mini-shelf similar to the filament shelf, except for holding rolls of tape in our closet. I've been meaning to get the closet a little more organized, and that was the first step. Though I don't really have much of a plan at this point, so I may have to spend some time staring at the closet. And I'll probably also spend some time staring at the contents of the drawer I added to the desk. Right now, everything is just kind of piled into there (like any good junk drawer), but I want to see what I can do to improve that.
And a work project that's less of a building project (though it may involve a little building) is that I want to work on the "Physics for Creatives" course that we're building, and I want to do slow motion video as part of studying kinematics. But in order to do this, I need to be trained on how to use the slow motion camera that we have (which apparently doesn't get much usage), and we're also going to have to build some scales and things to help us mark distances on camera. That's one that I think we're going to get to over this break.
I should probably wrap this thing up. My parents were out here for my mom's birthday. We didn't see them in person very long, but we did do a video call with them. Piano playing has disappeared, though I may try to pick it up again during the break. It's starting to get pretty cold outside. The extended family Zoom call is being put together, and while it's not as much fun as being in person, things are what they are right now and so we just do what we can do. The YouTube channel is approaching 1400 subscribers. Life keeps rolling on.
